It has been brought to our attention that there are some fake advert scams on a popular pet classifieds website that are using our images, of our kittens. These adverts are not us, they do not have any of our kittens, and they do not have permission to use our images. The only place that you can get a Bombadillo kitten is from us - Bombadillo Kittens!

Fake advert scams...

Unfortunately there are so many dishonest fraudsters out there at the moment that fake advert scams are being more common. Some of them set out to be dishonest. Others set out to breed kittens, thinking it will be easy. When they realise how incredibly difficult it is to breed happy, healthy kittens they get a serious shock. Then they resort to sneaky, underhand and fraudulent tactics to try and sell their substandard/sick kittens instead of putting the time, effort, expense and commitment in that is required. 

These unscrupulous fraudsters very nearly managed to dupe a very genuine, sensible and intelligent lady who was looking for a kitten. Fortunately, she contacted me at the last minute to double check after a google search brought her to our website, and she saw the image on our site.

The backyard breeder in question appeared to have used an image of one of our kittens, and told the lady that the kitten in the photo would be the kitten that she would receive. A clear example of a fake advert scam.

Please do not be duped by these fraudsters. Either they do not have any kittens at all and are simply taking money and vanishing with it, or their kittens are substandard and sick. There are no other reasons why you would steal images and hold them out as your own. 

I suppose we should take it as a compliment, but it is just too sad and frustrating to see people being scammed in this way. 

Here are some simple tips to help you avoid scammers: 

• Use google to check that the photo on an ad hasn’t been lifted from the website of a reputable breeder 

• Only choose a kitten that has been bred by a responsible, established breeder who has a website and a reputation. 

• Try to avoid pet classified websites - they are full of fraudsters. Unfortunately these sites are simply not able to keep the fraudsters at bay. We rarely ever advertise on these sites, and when we do we use our Bombadillo prefix and link to our own website. 

• As with all reputable breeders, no one else ever sells our kittens for us - the only place you can get a Bombadillo kitten is from us! No reputable breeder would ever knowingly allow anyone to sell on/resell their kittens. 

A few more tips...

• Many of our kittens are very unique and unusual - if you see a photo of a very unique/unusual British Shorthair kitten check to make sure it isn’t a photo someone has stolen from us!

• Feel free to contact us through our website contact form 

• We rarely ever put kittens on the Active register, so if anyone ever tells you that one of the parents of their kitten is a Bombadillo cat, please feel free to contact us and we can double check this for you.   

Sometimes unscrupulous breeders also steal pedigrees. The lady who alerted me to this incident was told that the pedigree documents would be sent to her. Please be super cautious at the moment: lockdown appears to have resulted in a huge rise in these types of fraudsters. Stick to reputable breeders with their own, established websites. 

To discover more about the types of scams that are out there, have a look at our article on Kitten Scale Scams, and also have a look at our Beware Photo Editing article.

To see if we have any kittens available please see our kitten page.